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Anna Mae Case: A Test for the U.S. Judicial System

On May 12, 2004, Tennessee Judge Robert Childers terminated the parental rights
of Chinese immigrants, Jack and Casey He, allowing a local mortgage banker and his
wife, Jerry and Louise Baker, to adopt the Hes' five-year-old daughter, Anna Mae,
away from them.

Jack and Casey He with newborn daughter

To date the Hes' lawyers have never received a signed copy of his ruling (they
ultimately had to access the ruling via the website of the administrative offices
of the court). Judge Childers promptly released an electronic copy of his ruling
to the news media, sending shockwaves across the Internet and throughout the local
community. His unexpected ruling also raised eyebrows in the Hes' home country of
China, where various groups and officials awaited the outcome of the bitter four-year
battle.

Bogus Abandonment Charges

In his lengthy ruling, Judge Childers found the Hes guilty of willful abandonment
of their daughter, effectively dismissing the fact that this poor Chinese couple has
been fighting all along, in three courts and before four judges for her return.

As pointed out by several legal experts surveyed by news media, Childers's ruling
contains seriously flawed arguments and a handful of unsupported assumptions.

Case in point:

Childers cited as a basis for his ruling a Tennessee law governing the timeframe
required to justify abandonment. Should the Hes have had no contact with their daughter
for a four-month window, this would constitute, in the eyes of the law, abandonment.

Childers cited a specific window, January 29 to June 6 of 2001, in which the Hes had
no direct contact with their daughter due to their perception that the Bakers would have
them arrested if they approached the child. The fact that Mrs. He did, in fact, file a
legal petition on April 9, 2001 - during the window in question - to compel the return of her
child was used by Childers as evidence to justify terminating her parental rights.

Childers ruled that Mrs. He did not specify in her petition her request for visitation,
so her petition to get her child back "evinces Mrs. He's willful abandonment of AMH."

Secret Journal

To further justify his conclusion of willful abandonment, Childers elected to ignore
critical refuting evidence, such as an October 3, 1999 entry in a secret journal kept
by the Bakers.

In that journal, as well as in their later testimony, the Bakers stated that they
wished to reduce the Hes' visits with their daughter for the express purpose of weaning
the couple away from her. Childers also chose to consider the modified testimony by the
Bakers that contradicted their earlier testimony and other evidence already introduced
to the court. (The Bakers had originally confirmed that the police had ordered the Hes
off the Baker property and not to return, laying the foundation for the Hes' four-month
absence from Anna Mae's life and raising the question of abandonment; in their modified
testimony, the Bakers claimed the police had told the Hes not to return that day only.)

By deliberate omission and selection of testimony, Childers concluded that the Bakers
never discouraged or hindered the Hes' visits and that the Hes' failure to visit for four
months therefore constituted willful abandonment, i.e. grounds for termination of parental
rights.

Unspecified Misconduct

Further, Childers issued a ruling that "there is parental misconduct or inability
to parent by the Hes," saying that "the physical environment of the Hes' home is
unhealthy and unsafe." This was based almost exclusively on testimony from Mr. Baker,
who stated he found the Hes' apartment unsavory when he visited in 1999, even going so far
as to cite the presence of fish bones from the Hes' cooking as evidence of their lack of
cleanliness.

Interestingly enough, Childers said nothing at all about the successful parenting
the Hes have been engaged in with their other two children, nor did he give weight to
the Hes' noteworthy improvement in apartments over the last five years or a November
2003 visit from the guardian at litem that found their living conditions satisfactory.

Childers did not cite even a single piece of evidence to prove the Hes' parental
misconducts! Instead, he simply decreed that the Hes were unfit parents, and therefore,
their parental rights had to be terminated in the matter of their first-born daughter.

Another ruling that is highly questionable was his detailed explanation of the
origin of two court orders issued by the ex trial judge, D.J. Alissandratos, i.e.
"Guardianship order and No Contact Order." Larry Parrish, the lawyer for
the Bakers, testified during the trial that he knew exactly how the two under-the-table
orders came into being, i.e. they were issued during a private meeting between Mr.
Parrish and the Court in the absence of any hearing or even the prior knowledge of
the Hes or their lawyer.

Now, however, Childers-in his findings of laws and factspresents a new version
of the origin of these two court orders by citing an unrelated conference call between
various parties as the moment of disclosure, dismissing the private meeting; in essence,
he excludes the "ex parte" deal between the Court and Mr. Parrish.

Funds Frozen

As one might expect, the Hes are devastated by the ruling and are deeply humiliated
by its harsh and inaccurate words for assassination of their character. David Siegel
and Richard Gordon, the pro bono lawyers for the defense, have vowed to appeal the ruling,
seeking true justice from a higher court. But the appeal process is hampered by the
impoverished state of the Hes, a situation further aggravated when, a few days after
his ruling, Childers took an additional step of freezing a fundraising account, a
non-profit foundation, to help defray the Hes' legal expenses.

Their supporters have recently felt forced to establish a new fundraising account
(www.parentalrightsandjustice.com) while
the money they had previously raised sits in a legal limbo, awaiting judgment from the court.

Since the Hes lost their legal immigration status several years ago, the Bakers
and their lawyers have repeatedly requested that the INS deport the couple before
the custody case was over - a quick victory without the necessity of a trial.

Now Judge Childers has ended the four-year custody battle, and the Hes are justifiably
concerned that the INS may now deport them prior to the conclusion of their appeal. And
since Childers has seemingly arbitrarily declared them unfit parents, they are worried
that their two other children might also be taken away from their "unsafe and
unhealthy living environment."

Despite all of this, the Hes vow that, while they may have lost their faith in the
Tennessee courts, they still have confidence in U.S. judicial system in general, and
they have promised to fight until the very end to regain their constitutionally
protected parental rights of their first-born daughter.

The United States Supreme Court has always treated parental rights as constitutionally
protected human rights that should be given utmost respect by the law. So although the
Hes are Chinese citizens living in a sometimes-hostile foreign land, they should be given
an equally fair chance to defend their parental rights in the U.S. justice system.

The Chinese embassy in Washington, D.C. is monitoring the case as it works its way
through the system. And officials in China also await the outcome of what has been a
decidedly uphill battle for the Hes thus far. In the end, the world is watching and
waiting for real justice.